World: New releases: Various Artists: International Sad Hits

Touring with their Japanese collaborators Ghost, Boston’s acid-folk duo Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang discovered many Asian singer-songwriters of the 1960s who were legends in their homelands, but unknown elsewhere. This compilation offers 16 selections from four of them, with handy translations. Fikret Kizilok is a Turkish Nick Drake, propelled by tablas and soaked in strings. From Japan, Tomokawa Kazuki’s declaimed vocals seem problematically mannered, while Mikami Kan suggests Scott Walker busking in the Underground. Kim Doo Soo bends bluesy notes like Bert Jansch. His fatalistic protest song Bohemian drove one Korean listener to commit suicide and convinced another not to. Swings and roundabouts. Three star